With fewer daylight hours and colder temperatures, it can be challenging to get enough vitamin D during the winter months.
Without the proper amounts of vitamin D, however, you could be at risk for all kinds of health problems, including heart conditions and weakened bones. Children who have vitamin D deficiencies are also at higher risks of developing rickets.
Vitamin D, which is actually a hormone, is created in your body when your skin is exposed to the sun. It helps your body absorb calcium and sustain normal amounts of phosphorous. There are some supplements and foods, such as fatty fish, that also help your body produce vitamin D, but the best way to get enough vitamin D is from the sun.
According to the Mayo Clinic , the recommended amount of vitamin D is 400 international units (IU) for children up to 12 months, 600 IU for people from 1-70 years old, and 800 IU for people over 70 years old. However, more may be necessary for healthy adults, according to a 2008 study.
In the US, up to 41.6% of the adult population has a vitamin D deficiency, which correlates with several chronic diseases, according to a 2010 study .
A vitamin D deficiency, as defined by the study, is if someone has less than 20 nanograms per milliliter (ng/mL) in their blood. In order to have sufficient levels of vitamin D again, people in the study needed to take 5,000 IU to reach above 30 ng/mL, according to Healthline .
Read on to find out some of the scary things that could happen to you if you become vitamin D deficient.
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According to Dr. Michael Holick , from Boston University Medical Center, one of the first signs of a Vitamin D deficiency is an excessively sweaty head.
"It's one of the first, classic signs of vitamin D deficiency," he told HuffPost .
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According to a study of female nurses, there could be a strong connection between fatigue and vitamin D deficiency. Another study found that taking a vitamin D supplement could help.
"There is mounting evidence that vitamin D deficiencies are associated with fatigue and sleep disorders," California State University in Fresno professor Catherine G. R. Jackson, Ph.D., told Reader's Digest .
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For a long time, vitamin D was believed to be most important for calcium levels, but studies have shown vitamin D is also important for your immune system. If you have low levels of vitamin D, you could be more likely to get sick often.
A study from the University of Eastern Finland even found that people with low levels of vitamin D are more than 2.5 times more at risk of developing pneumonia than people with high vitamin D levels.
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Vitamin D can also affect your mood , a 1998 study found. Other review studies have also found links between vitamin D deficiency and depression, though some controlled trials haven't found that same link, according to Healthline .
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According to research presented at the American College of Cardiology, people with lower levels of vitamin D were more likely to have coronary heart disease and have it more severely.
A study from 2013 also found a causal link between hypertension, or high blood pressure, and vitamin D deficiency.
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Because vitamin D helps your body absorb calcium, if you aren't getting enough vitamin D, your bones could become weaker, which puts you at an increased risk of fractures.
"Without vitamin D, calcium doesn't get absorbed properly," Jennifer Giamo, a nutritionist, told Reader's Digest . "Vitamin D, specifically D3, which increases calcium absorption, is critical to preventing bones from becoming thin and brittle."
If adults have a vitamin D deficiency, they are also at a higher risk of developing osteoporosis and osteomalacia, according to MDMag . Osteomalacia causes bones to hurt and osteoporosis causes bones to get thinner and makes them easier to fracture.
In children, a severe vitamin D deficiency can cause rickets , a disease that softens and weakens children's bones, which can cause skeletal deformities such as bowed legs or breastbone projection.
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Some research has shown that vitamin D can lower the risk of developing multiple sclerosis (MS) and for people who already have MS, vitamin D can lower the severity of their symptoms, according to the Mayo Clinic.
Further, there seems to be an association between a lack of exposure to sunlight and the development of MS .
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According to a 2014 review of 14 observational studies, people with vitamin D deficiency are twice as likely to be diagnosed with schizophrenia, though more clinical trials are needed to confirm the review.
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Older adults who have moderate to severe vitamin D deficiencies are at greater risk of developing dementia or Alzheimer's, according to a 2014 study .
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According to another 2014 study , cancer patients with higher levels of vitamin D have higher survival rates than cancer patients who are vitamin D deficient.
"The results suggest vitamin D may influence the prognosis for people with breast cancer, colorectal cancer, and lymphoma, in particular," said, Hui Wang, MD, Ph.D ., Professor of the Institute for Nutritional Sciences at the Shanghai Institutes for Biological Sciences at the Chinese Academy of Sciences in Shanghai, China.
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People with low levels of 25-hydroxyvitamin D are more likely to die earlier than people with normal levels of vitamin D, according to research published in The American Journal of Public Health that analyzed 32 studies for the correlation between all-cause mortality and vitamin D.
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